


Scars

by LibertyKingdom



Category: Miami Vice (TV)
Genre: F/M, mellowoutpal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:55:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22298179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LibertyKingdom/pseuds/LibertyKingdom
Summary: Tubbs is still coming to terms with having watched Crockett get shot. (Mellowoutpal)
Relationships: Ricki Tubbs/ Sonny Crockett
Kudos: 2





	Scars

Tubbs hadn’t been able to sleep properly since the night it happened. Any rest she did get was disrupted by the plague of terrors.

The thunder of a gunshot pierces the peace of slumber. “Sonny!” She’d shout, twisting in her sheets as she reaches out to grab him. His name bounces into the void of darkness around her as it had off the metro walls. But her warning is too late. Much too late. He has been shot and she watches in horror as he drops to the tracks below!

Two halos of cruel light slice through her memory. They are promptly followed by the violent rumble of the ground beneath her feet. Its a train barreling down upon them at untold speeds. This… this is how it ends. Crockett departing the world before her, leaving her all alone. The terrible roar of an engine and the piercing wails of brakes rouses her.

Tubbs finds herself covered head to toe in an icy sweat, her heart barely managing to strangle out a dull series of thuds. When it does beat, she can feel it in the tightened confines of her throat. Its all too real. Like the day’s events were stuck on a sporting match’s replay. Five digits grapple with the plastic receiver of her phone before she recollects that he is alive. That she is going to see him in the short span of mere hours. She can’t just call him at three am just to hear his voice for the tenth night in a row. He’d probably start to suspect that she was struggling and he didn’t need to worry about her. 

This incident was just another taste of hell on earth. Her mind briefly shifts between the near death of Crockett and the murder of her brother before returning to her partner. There were too many similarities. She can not return to sleep for she knows full well what awaits her lowered guard. And Tubbs sure as Hell had enough flashbacks for one night.

Tubbs casts her empty gaze into the mirror as she prepared to go to his place early. Fatigue caressed every corner of her usually beautiful hues. Her championing smile scarcely met her lips (if it even crept out at all). She was pensive, wound tighter than a string for a guitar. Worse still, she felt one fray away from snapping. She had come so close to attending another funeral of someone she loved more than life itself.

___

Yeah, Sonny might have said “swing by at seven am” but its scarcely four. She tells herself she can waste a few hours building a new alias. Hell, in the life of Vice, you never could be too sure when you’d need another one. But the task did not consume her otherwise preoccupied mind for longer than half an hour. And she readies to depart by five.

Typically, Ricki would apologize for arriving early. But not today. She had the deepest urge to satisfy her conscience that her partner was still breathing. That she had rescued him from the clutches of the grim-reaper. Showing further lack of restraint, she reaches out and presses her hand to his newest addition, the scar.

The warmth of his body radiates through every etching line, wrinkle, and crease in her hands. In the same way, scarlet had soaked into every crack, crevice, and groove. It takes her a moment to dismiss the recollection of his life growing cold just as Raphael’s had beneath her fingertips. But unlike her brother, Sonny still had the steady thrum of life still clinging stubbornly to his rib-cages.

Tubbs is struck breathless when he speaks her name. Her chest tightens with increasing worry when she haphazardly dares to meet his gaze through a sheen of un-shed tears. Her tired hues become burdened with guilt and shame. It was her fault he had been hurt! If she had acted sooner, if she had anticipated trouble this NEVER would have happened! She should have NEVER let him try to take Lorca-Mendez alone! Crockett’s wound might not hurt as much as it had, but the scars it left deep upon her own heart hadn’t healed. They were still too raw to even scab over.

“Oh Sonny,” she swallows thickly in an effort to control her cracking voice. “I’m so sorry.” The apology slips out in a sotto voce. She had failed him. She should have done more and she will do more to ensure something like this NEVER happens to him again. Tubbs hadn’t left his side during the life flight nor at the hospital except when she was forced to hunt down the bastards that did this to him. And she had hated every moment she spent away from his side for it meant she could not protect him further.

Her dark lashes flicker downwards to caress her cheekbones as his larger hand finds hers. It takes her a moment to process his words but when she does, she nods. Yes, Ricki most certainly felt his heartbeat. So she manages to squeak out a weak “yeah.” She edges intimately closer to him, allowing his words to provoke an unbidden series of silver orbs to drift from her eyes. Bravely she breathes,“it better not stop, partner. I can’t risk you going anywhere. I count heavily on you. Besides, I don’t want to go attending no funerals for my friends.” Friends. Ha! They were definitely more than that but they never had felt a large desire to label whatever they had. Maybe someday they would. 

There is another reason he wasn’t allowed to die. And perhaps it was a touch selfish. Then allowing her gaze to once more meet his she breathes, “I love you, man.” Sure it was a three-word phrase but in light of recent events, she believes she hasn’t said it enough. Her other hand raises to cup his stubbled jawline. “I just… I really need you to know that.” She couldn’t bring herself to say it while he was recovering for fear she might still lose him. But now, now that the most significant danger had passed, she felt at full liberty to express what had been weighing heavily upon her mind. A part of her had been tempted to press her face into the scoop of his neck and hold him. But if she dared wrap her arms around him, she wasn’t certain she’d ever be able to let him go again.

“Tell you what, if you haven’t eaten yet, I’ll take you to one of those greasy establishments you like for breakfast on the way in. I’ll even pay.” She offers, trying so desperately to make herself stop looking so pathetic in his presence.


End file.
